It’s no secret that from the day after the 2016 election,
Democrats had their sights set on impeaching President Trump, even objecting
on January 6, 2017 to the electoral votes starting with the State of Alabama,
which President Trump won by 28 points, alleging “Russia Collusion.” When
the Russian collusion conspiracy was proven to be make believe, they moved
on to impeaching him over allegations made by an “anonymous whistleblower” who
we later found out worked with Joe Biden when he was vice president. We may
never know all the facts about those allegations because House Democrats
denied President Trump his Sixth Amendment right to cross examine the witness
against him.
Just like the Russian collusion narrative, it was all
political theater, engineered before an election, and designed to railroad
President Trump and energize the Democratic Party’s base of support at a time
when the economy was thriving and our country was at peace. In the Senate
there was little appetite for the show trial and the articles of impeachment
were rightly dismissed. Trump Impeachment 2.0 is unconstitutional and should
also be dismissed by the U.S. Senate.
Now that President Trump’s term has ended and he is a
private citizen, the impeachment articles are irrelevant, and the case is moot.
The U.S. Constitution limits impeachment jurisdiction to the current
president, vice president and sitting federal civil office holders. Additionally,
the Constitution prescribes a punishment that shall not go beyond removal from
office with the possibility of being disqualified from holding office in the
future. Since President Trump no longer holds office, the penalty if
convicted is meaningless. It’s politics at its worst and will only serve to
further divide our nation.
Furthermore, it is disingenuous to tie President Trump’s
January 6th remarks with the violence that took place at the U.S. Capitol.
President Trump addressed the crowd by the White House grounds about two
miles away from the Capitol, exercising his right under the First Amendment,
and he asked attendees to protest peacefully. He did not use any language
during his address that could be construed as incitement. He also rightly
denounced the violence and instructed federal authorities to bring those
responsible for breaking the law to justice.
There is good reason to believe that a group
of individuals, unaffiliated with the rally, assembled, broke the law, and
disobeyed police orders by breeching the doors of the U.S. Capitol even before President
Trump made his remarks. We also now know that bombs were placed
outside the Republican and Democratic Committee Headquarters in the early
morning hours indicating violence was planned possibly weeks in advance.
House Democrats were so eager to get another shot at
impeaching President Trump that they bypassed the regular process and denied
President Trump, members of Congress and the American people the
prerequisite fact-finding through committee hearings and official
investigations into the events of January 6th. We still do not have a full
accounting of what took place, and what organizations and individuals were
involved in the violent acts that day, though I have requested this
information from law enforcement authorities. We need a bipartisan commission
to investigate those events.
Truth be told, President Trump’s real offense
is that he beat Hillary Clinton four years ago in an upset election that
liberal Democrats and the Washington establishment have never gotten over.
This impeachment reeks of political revenge and is a waste of valuable time
Congress could be dedicating to uniting the country and getting Americans
safely back to work. Antics like this are an abuse of power, but sadly are in
line with other abuses of power in the opening month of the new Congress:
removing a member of Congress for statements made before she became a member of
Congress and changing House rules to prohibit Republicans from offering an
amendment at the end of House debate on legislation (a right that the minority
party has had for more than 100 years).
These highly partisan actions make many Americans cynical
about politics and distrustful of Washington and the motives of our leaders. At
a time when Congress should be thinking about ways to unify the nation and
improve the public’s trust, it has hit rock bottom and started digging deeper.
Congressman Bill Posey represents
Florida’s 8th District in the U.S. House of Representatives.
